Re: Alpha Particles and One Time Pads

Tim May sez:
	Here's a posting I just sent to sci.crypt, dealing with using alpha
	particle sources as noise sources for generating one-time pads.
	
Tim,
Why not use a back-biased germanium diode, or other noisy semiconductor
junction?  Seriously, the NRC has allowed the smoke detector people to
spread those little radioactive chunks of Americium for too long.

John Walker of AutoDesk actually built an IBM-PC card that generated
random numbers from a radioactive source.

All the best,

^M

>Tim May sez:
>	Here's a posting I just sent to sci.crypt, dealing with using alpha
>	particle sources as noise sources for generating one-time pads.
>	
>Tim,
>Why not use a back-biased germanium diode, or other noisy semiconductor
>junction?  Seriously, the NRC has allowed the smoke detector people to
>spread those little radioactive chunks of Americium for too long.
>
>John Walker of AutoDesk actually built an IBM-PC card that generated
>random numbers from a radioactive source.

Q: how hard/cheap will it to build a shielded rs232 plud with a noisy diode
    in it to provide a random number source?


I have written on a possible random number source for Sun SparcStations
(I and II).  I have a program programs the audio chip to take input from
mic port 2 (which is not used in a SparcStation) then I turn up the
gain in the pre-amps and  read the data of the from the DtoA.

I do not know how random it is yet (if anyone wants to run some tests
for me I will be happy to email them the program)


		-Pete